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Wilson Kane wins a fortune and his future bride at a game of dice from the former pirate Balthasar. When he decides to go and get the girl, the pirate way, by kidnapping her, not only he finds out that she is more than a pirate could ever want from a wife... but that she has 4 identical sisters as well.

This discovery hits him when his men, who were supposed to help him out, each kidnaps a different girl... and none of them gets the right one! But Wilson Kane wants the girl he had met and no one else! Luckily for him it will be the girl herself to solve his problem and put an end to his dilemma...

a solution that will eventually fling her into a new way of life, aboard the Alidivento, across the Mediterranea sea!

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Monday, July 12, 2010

Chapter 5 D curiosities

So Chapter 5 is almost done, 9 more pages to go and then we jump into the juicy part.This chapter, being the first one of the volume, is an introduction and set things up... also the different parts of the chapter are structured in a way that the penultimate part has the chapter climax and the last part is more of a "the moral of the story was" feel to it. Once a bunch of stuff happens it's always nice to draw a line, sit and reflect a bit.It will be coming up in the next 9 pages.

Then of course chapter 6 starts... the first part will introduce the theme to the chapter and the second part will be... juicy, the third part will be juicy and then we close again... but with a cliffhanger of some sort because this is the second chapter of the volume and it needs a "to be continued" feel to it.But let's get to the interesting stuff...

What is the stuff Kane talked about in the last pages of chapter 5D?

When Kane was talking to Castalia he said some important words to her. Being in a situation of constant danger all the time he cannot marry just any woman, he needs a cool companion.Now, one may think: man, then don't marry the first girl you meet in a tavern!Right... Ah, but see Castalia gave display of bravery and intelligence in one night and he probably saw potential (aside from the fact that he has his own personal reasons and we'll know about them later). In fact, when he discovers that she is ignorant he is shocked and upset... but he is not willing to give up and decide to teach her. He'll be her mentor!What kind of hero's journey would we have without a mentor?

When he tries to convince her that she can read books, it's okay to read books... he tells her that he believes women to be as intelligent as men, they can think and when they study they even say dangerous things and that's what scares people the most. So he says that, to most people, a smart woman is like a monster and talks about Hypatia.

Now, quoting Hypatia might sound as an anti Cristian statement from Kane's part (she's always been used for anti religious purposes) but he does not mention anything about death, he just says that poor Hypatia... well, something bad happened to her and he think that's because she was too smart (although that might not be true, he probably read books and got his own ideas about that).

Of course the guy is not saying that Castalia should be like Hypatia. He merely says that he needs his wife to be a quick thinker in order to get him out of trouble if he does get in trouble. He needs backup! A buddy! A companion! --- that line is pushing it a bit. Can a girl really get the pirate Balthasar out of trouble?Who knows... but by setting a high standard Kane can at least achieve a smaller goal: push her to become someone able to stay out of trouble. So that if something happens to him... he does not have to worry about her... because she can take care of herself!

I mentioned already in his presentation that Kane is the type of guy who would never give a fish to a starving man, he would teach him to fish instead and give him a fishing line.This is exactly what he is doing with his wife without trying to change her.Castalia wants to be a pirate? Very well, he is not saying: you cannot be a pirate... he is saying: okay but you have to know a couple of things if you want to survive.Just like he didn't say: I'll give you the world... he said: the world is there, go get it, I'll follow you.

He mentioned another thing called: tetragramma.Now... we all know what a staff or stave is.Up until the 16th Century the staff had only four lines and in Italian you would call that a tetragramma (tetra being the suffix you use for 4... while penta is the one you use for 5, it's Greek, anyway don't kill yourself on this stuff, it's just out of curiosity). The modern staff, in Italian, is called pentagramma and has 5 lines and 4 spaces and was introduced just slightly before the 1500.The tetragramma or 4 lines staff was used mostly for church music and madrigals and the notes, up until the second decades of the 1600 were: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. (goes all back to Paul the Deacon and the hymn to st. john... other stuff you really don't need to know about)....

Except, when Castalia says: do, re, mi, fa, sol... she shows to be superior to her husband in one thing: music! - at least for now...

In fact she already knows "do" and does not mention "ut" and probably that's due to the fact she is pretty young and listens to some modern and... let's say more "commercial" songs.But Kane is older, doesn't care for music and let me tell you... cannot sing (there's at least one thing he cannot do). So he gets the music misunderstanding part but then he comes out with something as old as a tetragramma... which means the only music he ever heard was the one he heard in church from church choir with all the Gregorian watchamacallit that a church choir would imply. In short, to Kane, music is boring and he probably never heard of Monteverdi nor Henry Purcell (which is a great loss - he'll eventually appreciate music, one day, because of a particular jig!)! XDDDOh, I just realized that he probably never even danced a passacaglia from my beloved Giovan Battista Lulli! How saaaad! TT___TT

What else? Ah... tsatsiki... the dish Pifo prepares... ehm... if you like yogurt and cucumbers and find the weather to be particularly hot and unbearable... you might want to try this.It's good and fresh. It's a Greek dish and let's not forget: we are dealing with Papadopulos kids here! :D

I think that covers it all... if you have any other questions you can use the shoutbox!

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